The Last Sons
by Comorep677
Summary: Haunted by demons of his past and visions of the future, Bardock escapes the fate of his planet and swears revenge on the man who wiped out his entire race. Such darkness spreads to all corners in the galaxy, and when his new home and refuge is in danger of turning to dust, he must join forces with its saviors, some who know as well what it means to be the Last Son of their world.
1. Cursed with Sight

**poopy di scoop**

"That was one hell of a party, eh, Fasha?" the tall, burly, tan-skinned man with a chip-toothed smile and a head of straight, spiky black hair said to his teammates, wearing blue and black, light but hard armor with broad shoulder blades striped with blue, gleaming and scuffed strips of hard metal. He had a long, furry brown tail like the rest of his party, curled around his waist like a brown belt. He tapped his cracked, green eyepiece anchored on a headset worn on one ear. He looked at the green headsets worn by the rest of the party with a small, upturned frown. His was the only cracked one. He sat on a chunk of broken boulders among the mass destruction and desolation of the surrounding area that had once been a city to a civilization that now existed solely in the past. The crater they made and sat in was a testament to that people's strength. They went down fighting.

Fasha yawned, sitting up on the rocks and looking around at their handiwork. "If you say so, Tora," she said dismissively, "I don't remember any of it." She was short and petite with fair skin and wild, short brown hair and brown eyes. She wore similar armor to Tora, except she didn't have the shoulder pads to her black and gold armor. She wore dusty white gloves that didn't help in making sure that her one gold earring was secure, and a pink tank top underneath her chestplate.

Tora chuckled. "You're a typical ape."

Fasha scowled, rolling her eyes. "Oh, shut up," she said, "I don't see how you guys remember that stuff anyway, if anyone's more monkey than man it'd definitely be you."

"I'm with Fasha on this one," the third man of their party said with a softer but deeper voice than Tora. He was the biggest of the five with the width of one of the boulders surrounding them, with pale tan skin scarred on his forehead by three horizontal slash marks with a spiky black cul de sac around his egg-shaped head and small, brown eyes. He wore blue and black armor like Tora's, except he wore simple golden shoulder straps like Fasha rather than the extended shoulder pads. "Like a dream, ya kinda remember it all, but then it just slips away." He turned to the second largest man on the squad. "What do ya think, Shugesh?"

Shugesh snorted angry air out of his bulbous nose, rubbing a fresh, pink scar across his chubby, fair-skinned cheeks. Where the other big man was all muscle, he was all fat, with beady brown eyes, a thin fu manchu mustache and a black bowl cut. "I don't remember much, Borgos, but I do remember the little shit that gave me this." He wore the padless blue and black armor like Fasha and Borgos, but it was apparent that he took more hits than the others.

Fasha pointed with her thumb to the fifth soldier laying on his back on the ground, staring up at the blue sky. "Bardock says he remembers everything."

Tora laughed. "Don't make me laugh, Fasha, but-"

"But you're laughing now."

Fasha and Tora stared at each other in the awkward silence for a moment as the wind blew some of the dust around the crater their squad sat in. "Bardock might remember every second of every battle, but he seems to remember nothing of his personal life," Tora continued, looking down at the fifth man and the leader of their squad. He was a tall and muscular man with tan skin and wild, moderately long and spiky, black hair all over his head. His intelligent, dark brown eyes met Tora's in a bored, passive expression, as if what the other Saiyans said had no effect on him whatsoever. His armor was the same as Borgos and Shugesh, but where it was gold strips of scuffed metal on their shoulder straps, stomach, and waist guards with long, half ovular plates extending to just above the knee, it was bright green. He wore red wristbands as well, with a faded scar in the shape of a thick, tilted "X" on his left cheek just below his eye. Tora never knew how he got it. "Allow me to demonstrate: Bardock! Do you remember the day your second son was born?"

Bardock looked up at the sky, fidgeting with a straw made out of a local crop between his teeth and his head in his hands in a relaxed pose. "No," he said with a deep, natural growl to his voice that unintentionally demanded authority, "but that was a long time ago."

Fasha smirked at the skyward staring Saiyan. "No it was not, you lazy bum," she said. "Yesterday? Come on, you need to see the little tyke. You'll have enough time to see him before our next assignment."

Bardock spat the straw out. "Nice," he said with bleeding sarcasm. "Father-son bonding." He sat up, rolling his shoulders back to hear them crack. "Why should I? They'll just send him away like the last one."

Fasha shook her head. "Bardock, you're too much."

Shugesh looked around at the devastation with a scoff. "Why are we fightin' for this dump anyway, is Frieza outta his tiny little mind or somethin'?"

"He always has been," Bardock said, looking around for something or someone else to break the silence they left in their wake, "but this planet must have some special energy, or so I've heard."

"I've heard the same thing," Tora said playfully, "you're supposed to be able to develop psychic powers if you live here long enough, like being able to read minds and see the future and stuff like that."

Bardock rolled his eyes. "Frieza's such a paranoid freak. The Green Lanterns would have been all over this planet if that were true, granted that wouldn't have made our job anymore difficult. They won't go anywhere near this side of the western quadrant ever since Frieza took us down."

"Sometimes I wish they would," Tora said, "I'm getting kinda bored of dealing with planet accruement."

"Same shit," Fasha said, "different colored stain, am I right?"

"You know something," Tora said, "the guys with the flowing capes, Zarbon, Dodoria, Frieza, all of 'em, they're scared of us. Kanassa's been in the mission pool for months, none of Frieza's precious elite would take it, so Bardock takes us and we take it overnight as a bunch of low levels. If we were to rise up, maybe join with the young Prince and his crew and really give it to them, we'd stop Frieza bossing us around by the time he put his lipstick on."

The group laughed except for Bardock who simply let out an amused snort. He felt uneasy and on edge from the eerie silence. Moreover, he was feeling watched. His suspicions were confirmed by a sudden explosion of sound from the piles of rocks behind them, revealing a tall, amphibious soldier with scaly blue skin, fishy lips, enraged purple eyes and wearing a light purple uniform under a black chestplate. He let out a shrill cry with a deep, hoarse voice, sending chills down the five soldiers' spines. "I wish you bastards could read minds so you could have heard the thoughts of my people as you _slaughtered them!_ "

Bardock hopped to his feet first, taken off guard by the sudden burst of speed from the warrior daring enough to fight all of them at once. Bardock fell into fighting stance and darted forward with incredible speed of his own, swiping through the air as his opponent had vanished before his eyes. "What the-" A sharp, burning pain unlike anything he had ever felt before surged from the bottom of his neck through his spine, making him fall forward with an excruciating rake dragging itself all the way down his back and up into his brain. His face felt hot and his vision rattled, seeing multiples of every object that he stumbled over to make him fall flat on his face.

"Kill the bastard!" Shugesh barked, flying into the warrior with a side kick that planted him into the side of the crater.

Tora aimed his palm at the warrior's back. A white ball of glowing energy formed from nothing, and Tora sent it to finish off the opponent. It hit head on, but the warrior persevered, turning around and pulling himself from the rock. His entire aura grew white, bathing him in a bright, purifying light.

Bardock's body weighed a ton. He fought through the pain, pushing himself to his hands and knees. "What did you do to me?!" he said through grit teeth.

"I have transmuted your destructive force into a more tolerable energy," the warrior announced to Tora, stepping forward slowly. "Soon, you will _all_ die."

Bardock felt the pain subside long enough to raise his head in defiance. "Maybe you will, but not us!" He aimed his hand at the warrior's head with a blue ball of the same energy floating just in front of his head. "Here, I'll show you-"

"Wait!" the warrior demanded, raising a shaky finger toward Bardock. "You have come here seeking psychic powers, so I must tell you that you now have what you seek, for I have given it to you." Tora wanted to laugh. "Bardock, Saiyan of Planet Vegeta, its _last son_."

"He's trying to read your mind, Bardock," Tora joked, his laughs stifled when the rest were not laughing with him.

"What do you mean by that?" Bardock asked. "Tell me now!"

"Frieza will never attain this gift, now that it is yours," he replied, beginning to laugh with a broken wheeze, "now go! See the horror of your people's end, just like I had to!"

Bardock cut his haunting laughter short with a blinding, blue phaser shot from his hand, covering him entirely until he was a burning carcass. "Instant barbecue," Shugesh said, "I wonder if he tastes as weird a he sounded. You want first bite, Bardock?"

Shugesh didn't receive an answer.

"Hey, Bardock," Shugesh said, waving his hand in front of their leader's face. "You there?" Bardock's eyes rolled into the back of his head and Shugesh jumped as he fell on his face again.

Fasha looked down in slight surprise. "I guess not."

"Don't tell me that little hit finally took ya out," Borgos said, leaning down to pick him up.

Shugesh didn't show much empathy, looking down almost in disappointment. "Poor bastard."

* * *

The first sensation Bardock felt was that he was wet. He couldn't open his eyes yet, he couldn't even move his fingertips, but he could hear. He figured this is what happened after he got hit in the head, like his brain was on stun. "If he keeps this up," a muffled voice said, "he's going to become stronger than King Vegeta!"

Another muffled voice chuckled. "No kidding," he said, "Bardock _only_ comes back from missions half dead. The guy really earns his keep around here. The guy's surely impressive, and a bit of a legend around the barracks."

"The guy's _batshit crazy_ ," the first voice said. Bardock could make out that it was a bit scratchy. He recognized it, but kept his eyes closed, not that he could open them anyway. The fluid he was surrounded by was cool, soothing on his head and back that still ached from… he didn't know how long he was out for. Most importantly, he knew that he was alive. "A low level like that, taking on Kanassa with a crew of grunts without any backup, this'll be the story of the week."

The voices were quiet for a moment, with only a rhythmic beep of a heart monitor in the background. "I believe he should be retested," the second voice continued, sounding older than the first. "His mental and physical capacity rivals the elites. He's being wasted on accruement duty."

"Most Saiyans are, Planthorr," the scratchy voice said. "They've got the higher-ups more worried than the body changers."

"Isn't one of them running that new special task force?" Planthorr asked.

"How's he doing, Malaka?" Tora's voice said.

The scratchier voice responded. "Physically, he's better than ever. Mentally, I'm not so sure. His brain EEG has fluctuated from his prior readings, but that is normal for a period following a mild traumatically-induced physiological disruption of brain function."

"He's the scientist, not us," Shugesh said bluntly.

Malaka sighed. "He hit his head, but he'll be okay."

"I guess I'm on lead until he recovers," Fasha said. "We have a mission to complete."

"Goodbye, old friend," Tora said, leaving Bardock in silence again.

Another voice soon took its place with a shrill, high pitched, baby's cry that made his brow furrow from the aggravation that he felt before. His eyes started twitching from the noise, and his heart monitor reflected it.

"Good morning, Bardock," Malaka said.

Something else disturbing assaulted a different sense. A red planet surrounded by starry darkness flashed into his mind, dissolving into dust as fast as the vision came. " _It looks like neither of us are enjoying this, kid_ ," he said to himself, the vision replaying in his mind over and over again with each repeat bringing a sharper clarity. " _Is that... Vegeta? It looks like what the guy on Kanassa said got to me after all._ "

The vision changed sharply, with him sitting in a round, podular ship staring out the window at two others. Worry and despair attacked him from both sides as the two ships flew in separate directions toward a blue and green planet, with his diving headfirst into the sea. The water around him felt heavier the longer the visions drowned him, showing him images of his squad laying dead among Kanassans and legions of other dead soldier under a pair of boots he recognized. The vision changed again and he gasped for breath, looking down in his arms and bearing the spitting image of himself wailing wildly with a headwrap over his hair in sync with the cries of the child forcing him awake. He felt calmer in this vision, but still shaken by the stark change. The baby melted in his arms and he looked up, seeing the figure of a woman walking into the narrow, black hall. "Bardock?" she said with a voice he didn't recognize. "Are you okay?"

The woman figure grew in size and expanded, morphing into a green, man-beast that howled as he charged toward him, leaving Bardock with only the dead, red eyes of a soulless opponent and his symbol emblazoned on his chest and forehead: three glowing purple circles arranged in a "V" connected by thin lines. " _Who are you?! Get away from me!_ " Bardock punched through him but his fist was caught by his spitting image, young and strong with a completely different form than the evil that assaulted him earlier.

Bardock's younger copy laughed with a friendly, easy going voice, looking up at him with the innocent, wide eyes that did not belong to his people. "Here I come!"

" _What does this mean?_ " Bardock said, ducking a kick and flipping back, staring face first into a sparkling blue wave of death. " _What does any of it-"_

The boy appeared above him with his leg cocked back, smiling at him in the thrill of the fight. "Get him outta there!" the boy said with Malaka's voice, landing the kick to the head.

Bardock yelped in surprise and his eyes flew open. His other senses returned with a slight buzz, and he wasted no time in ripping off the monitor stickers. He was cold from the water in the tank the two doctors had placed him in to recuperate, looking down he realized he was naked too. "Don't look!" Bardock shouted, pushing open the hatch and gasping for breath. He coughed some water up from his lungs, leaning forward and feeling dizzy.

"Take it easy, Bardock," Malaka said, "you of all people should know what happens after an emergency clear from a recovery booth, especially being in there for a whole two days."

"Two days?" he said, trying to regain his composure.

"Your blood pressure shout through the roof just then," Planthorr said, "you must have had one hell of a nightmare."

"I wasn't asleep," Bardock said, stepping out and covering himself with his hands. "I was in some hyper cortisol induced sleep paralysis, but it felt more real than some of my field assignments."

Planthorr handed him his clothes. "Take it easy for awhile, Bardock. That was probably a normal episode exacerbated by the head trauma."

"Whatever spooks _you_ is reason to take caution," Malaka said.

Bardock fastened his headgear to his face. "Is this Scouter calibrated?"

"You can't go back out there just yet," Planthorr said, growing annoyed by the Saiyan refusing to turn around to look him in the eye, "are you even listening?"

"I've taken worse beatings," Bardock said dismissively. "Where are the others?"

"Sent to Planet Meat," Planthorr said in defeat, "by Frieza himself."

Bardock's face lit up. "Frieza himself, huh? Either this is some kind of trick, or maybe we're getting some recognition after Kanassa. In any case, I'd better be on point, my rep can't afford my squadron screwing things up again."

"Wait! You can't go!" Malaka shouted behind him as he walked out of the clinic. "You're not cleared for combat yet!"

Bardock raised his hand in a wave as he walked past the examination tables, heading past the nursery rooms down a narrow hallway with pink tiled floors and white walls. The shrill cry he heard before roared back to life, this time at double the intensity. "Oh no, not again!" he said in apprehension, turning toward the source and letting out a sigh of relief. "Good, this one is real," he said, seeing the baby in his "dream" through the glass in a round crib wailing by himself. He was a healthy child, the spitting image of his father with a brown, furry tail that slapped the bed in discontent. Bardock was astonished by the volume. "I wonder how the babies next to him aren't going crazy," he said, "lungs of steel, that one has." As he stared into the crib, the last words of the Kanassan lingered in his head.

" _For I have given it to you…_ " it whispered, flashing images of the planet he stood on turning to ashes yet again before Bardock's eyes. " _...your people's end…"_

The bright flash of the planet's final moment blinded him, and upon blinking the spots away, he set his sights on the nametag at the edge of the crib. "Kakarot, huh?" he said, smiling in disbelief as the crying subsided with the visions. "Like father, like son," he said, "good thing you're too young to remember this." His Scouter beeped with yellow letters flashing in the corner of the eyepiece. "An average power level?" he said with a scowl, looking down at the child and remembering the kick in the head from the vision. "Maybe it was just a dream after all," he said with slight disdain, running off through a maze of corridors until he walked into a large hangar bay where hundreds of soldiers flying cramped, gray, podular vehicles with red cockpit windows bustled in and out of the station looking out over the metropolis built in the rocky landscape and extending high above the white clouds under the bright red sky. He took the nearest pod, nodding to the man standing at the end of the flashing runway directing the flux of spacecraft moving to and from the base. "Come on," he grumbled, impatiently gripping the control sticks on the leathery armrests. He ignored the hand from the director, slipping in between two exiting spacecraft and rocketing through the city where soldiers and civilians alike flew, walked, and drove on all levels of the streets between the skyscrapers. "I have a planet to take down to stick it to the pieces of shit at the top," he stated impatiently, rocketing through the sky and into the final frontier.

He looked back at the planet as red as it was in vision, his confidence shaken by the events from earlier. He half expected it to explode, and a tiny voice mimicking the Kanassan's voice in the back of his head told him that it would. Another voice told him to get back down there, take his son and run, but he shut both of them up.

"Psychic powers," Bardock scoffed. "Such bullshit."

* * *

 **SO**

 **AS YOU CAN SEE IT'S GOING TO FOLLOW BARDOCK THE FATHER OF GOKU FOR THE FIRST FEW CHAPTERS**

 **WHAT CHANGES/TWISTS DID YOU NOTICE IN THE VISION? WHO WAS THE WOMAN? THE MAN WITH THE PURPLE SYMBOL? THE BOY? WHAT WILL BARDOCK FIND ON PLANET MEAT? IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER PREDICTIONS/THOUGHTS, PLS REVIEW/PM!**

 **A/N BELOW:**

 **YA BOI IS BACK TO ENHANCE (OR RUIN) YA TWO FAVORITE FRANCHISES, DBZ AND JUSTICE LEAGUE**

 **A COUPLE THINGS ABOUT THIS FIC:**

 **-THIS IS NOT RELATED TO THE NEW FACE OF JUSTICE IN ANY WAY, MAYBE SOME OF THE CHARACTERIZATIONS AND SUCH WILL BE THE SAME, BUT WE HAVE NEW FACES, MORE PROMINENT ROLES OF DIFFERENT HEROES, ETC.**

 **-AS SUCH, SINCE THE NEW FACE OF JUSTICE PROMINENTLY FEATURED WONDER WOMAN, HER FAMILY, AND ROGUE'S GALLERY, THIS ONE IS GOING TO FEATURE SUPERMAN AND HIS FAM/ROGUE'S, WITH AN UNDECIDED JL CROSSOVER FOCUSING ON BATMAN DROPPING THIS WINTER**

 **-KAKASHI GA KILL AND LIVING THE PAST WILL BE FINISHED THIS YEAR DAMN IT SO DW**

 **-THE POWER LEVELS IN THIS ONE WILL BE DIFFERENT THAN IN MY OTHER DBZ STORIES, IE SUPER SAIYAN** _ **ONE**_ **WILL BE OP AS ALL FUCK**

 **-THIS ONE IS RATED T, SO NO LEMONS, BUT ALL THE OTHER GRIT OF BARDOCK STEPPING IN ASSES WILL REMAIN**

 **-DRAGONBALL MINUS WON'T BE A THING HERE. BARDOCK: THE FATHER OF GOKU ALL DA WAY BABY**

 **-NAMEKIANS AND HUMANS FROM Z WILL GET A BIG BUFF, NAMEKIANS WAY MORE THAN HUMANS OFC, BUT SAIYANS AND KRYPTONIANS WILL STILL EDGE IT OUT IN STRENGTH**

 **-SOME CHARACTERS WILL BE OLDER THAN HOW THEY ARE PORTRAYED/IMPLIED IN THE EPISODE OF BARDOCK, FOR EXAMPLE RADITZ WOULD BE 10 or 11, VEGETA WOULD BE ~16 INSTEAD OF LIKE 6, NAMEKIANS WOULD MATURE FASTER, ETC. SAIYANS AGE SLOW ANYWAY SO IF THERE ARE ANY *PUSHES UP ANGRY REVIEW TYPIN' GLASSES*** _ **INCONSHISHTENSHIES**_ **THEN WELP THEY'D LOOK THE SAME.**

 **-NO HAREM.** _ **NO HAREM**_ **. MAYBE HE'LL HAVE A FLING OR TWO, BUT NO HAREM. NNNNNNNNNO.** _ **NO.**_

 **-THANKS TO MY READERS WHO'VE STUCK WITH ME FOR SO LONG, YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED FAM AND I HOPE THIS ONE DOESN'T TAKE FOR YEARS**

 **-THANK EVERYBODY FOR READING. CH. 2 WILL BE UP SOON**


	2. Against Fate

**BLAKE AND TWISTER: GLAD TO SEE Y'ALL AGAIN**

 **GUEST: THANK YOU FOR THE POWER LEVEL GUIDELINES! JUST AN FYI, SAIYANS AND KRYPTONIANS WILL BE MORE EQUAL AND I WILL LIKELY NOT FOLLOW IT FOR ALL ALIEN SPECIES**

 **RICKSANCHEZ: WE'LL SEE, I'M THINKING ~150,000 WITH 3-5K WORDS PER CHAPTER BUT WE'LL SEE WHERE IT GOES**

 **A GUY: OK**

 **HERO KING ZETA 1991: THERE WILL BE PLENTY**

* * *

The red air stunk of iron. Bardock opened the hatch to his pod, stepping out into a familiar sight: scores dead of men who fought valiantly to their deaths, their great city reduced to rubble, and red blood running through the cracks of the sidewalk and seeping into the ground below. He smirked triumphantly at the sight, walking through the desolation as if he was strolling through the park. "Looks like they got busy without me," he said, "I guess they must have absorbed a little something watching me do all the work for them all these years." His Scouter beeped, showing four yellow circles clustered in the center of the eyepiece. "And their Scouters are still online, they're probably still celebrating."

He burst into the air faster than his own ship expecting to see his men waiting for him laughing over nonsense as usual, leaving behind him a trail of bright, blue energy that faded away like a jet stream. What he found instead was unlike anything he'd ever foresee, even with his new "powers." It was nothing he wanted to either, in fact it was worse than any nightmare. "Shugesh, Fasha, Borgos!" he uttered with a shaking voice. Blood still ran in the streets, but it was the blood of his closest allies that stained the grounds red. "What happened to you?" he whispered solemnly, feeling a chill travel the same path of the Kanassan strike down and up his spine. "It- it can't be!"

"B-bardock," Tora said in a rattling whisper, making the Saiyan jump.

"Tora!" he replied desperately, running over to his friend broken over a jagged rock and cradling his head in his lap. "Who did this to you? Don't tell me you let these _creatures_ leave you like this!"

Tora smiled weakly, his mouth dripping red. "Come on, Bardock. You know us better than that."

"Then who?" Bardock said, hearing the Kanassan's cryptic prophecy in his head yet again. "Who is responsible for this?"

Tora's smile faded, recalling the event. "Dodoria, he brought some of his elites, we got ambushed."

"Dodoria," Bardock said, his eyes stricken with disgust from the realization. "Frieza sent you here, it was a setup, wasn't it? That son of a bitch, you were right!"

"They're going to take us all out," Tora said, "Frieza, he's scared of us, Bardock. We're becoming too strong for him to control. Moreover, he's scared of _you_."

"Of me?" Bardock said under his breath. "Stay with me Tora, where did Dodoria go?"

"They wanted you the most," Tora said, "Frieza knows exactly what you may become if you're left alive."

"Tora, don't do this," Bardock pleaded, wanting to shake him awake, "not yet, damn it!"

Tora smiled again, chuckling painfully while looking up at his friend's righteous aura surrounding his head of pure Saiyan hair. "Good luck," he wished him, "I'm sorry I won't be around to see you become who you're truly meant to be."

"Fight it, Tora!" Bardock shouted, feeling hot tears well up in his eyes and turn into steam from his swelling, silent anger. "That's an order, don't you die on me!"

"Goodbye, old friend," Tora said, his voice slipping away with his eyes fixed on his leader until the end.

Bardock felt him go limp in his arms. He closed his ally's eyes and laid him on the ground. He looked at his hand drenched in his partner's blood, his shock fading away into dark despair. "This is what it's come to, best friend?" he said softly, untying the white towel bandages around Tora's leg to wipe the blood and dirt from his closest comrade's face. "He doesn't even have the balls to come down and do it himself."

He looked around at the rest of his crew again, his sadness twisting into unyielding rage. The blood on his hand mixed with the blood on the towel in his hand, soaking it thoroughly red.

"I'll get them for this, I'll make sure all of you are avenged," he declared, holding the towel up with a furious, shaking fist. "If Frieza wants to repay us in our own blood, then he better fucking spill all of it!"

His Scouter beeped in the side of his screen with four yellow circles. Bardock turned sharply to the four visitors smiling sadistically at his situation. "I knew you'd turn up eventually," the leader of the four said. He was tall, pale and muscular with long, brown hair and short horns on his forehead. His entire squad wore a brown version of Tora's armor made out of much finer metal. He was joined by a short, purple alien with a long head and an amphibious face, and a pair of reptilian soldiers with green, armored plates on their brown heads. "What a speech too," he said in a rough, hoarse voice. "You almost had me tearing up just then. I almost felt bad for doing that to your crew."

Bardock tied the red towel around his forehead, letting the stench of wrathful blood flood his senses. "You don't need to regret it," he said, his aura spiking for what was about to occur, "you just need to pay the consequences."

"Oh really?" the alien with the long head said. "Who's going to make us do that? You really think that you could have stopped this?"

Bardock stopped moving, in fact he stopped doing anything at all. It was only after all four Scouters beeped they realized the Saiyan was no longer there. The purple alien dropped at his commander's feet, the back of his head pushed out of his mouth. "Prepare to die!" Bardock roared from above like a bright blue meteor, crashing in the middle of the three remaining warriors and blowing them away. The three hitmen coughed and choked on the dust, their Scouters working on overdrive to follow the vengeful fighter.

"Bardock! You can't run!" the commander shouted.

"I'm not running, you'd better believe that!" Bardock barked.

"Boss! He's here!" one of the armor-headed soldiers croaked, stuck in an unbreakable chokehold. "He's over-"

"You're over," Bardock corrected, snapping his thick neck with ease. The commander fired a bolt of yellow energy to put him down, but his jaw fell in horror at his lackey frying instead. "Are you scared yet?" Bardock shouted, deflecting another energy blast into the second reptilian soldier and catching a punch from the commander. "I know that my men were _not!_ "

"Just die already, low level trash!" the commander spat, swiping through another image left by his speed.

Bardock was high above them and shot down like a falling star, drawing his hand back to blow the commander to pieces. Words of unknown meaning and foreign language flooded his mind, with the blue and green planet flashing before his eyes. "Kamehameha!" he blurted out, stopping cold in the air. "Wait, what?"

"Was that some plea for mercy?" the commander cackled, bursting toward him.

As Bardock stared at the commander his form seemed to change, his skin turning bright, pale green and chrome with shining purple body armor. " _Not again…_ " The mysterious opponent's eyes glowed even brighter than his last vision, with his symbol standing out and blinding him with another flash of Vegeta fading away into space dust.

"And with Earth," it said, its calm and unsettling voice echoing through his mind, "I end both the Saiyans, and any world they would dare call their own. You all belong to me now."

"Earth?" Bardock mumbled, getting another flash of the blue and green planet before his eyes. "Who are you?!"

Another kick brought him back into reality but this kick was real, sending him spiraling head first into the rock below. "I'm your angel of death, Saiyan!" the commander boomed from above.

Bardock flipped to his feet and looked up, sidestepping blast after blast of yellow energy. He shot through the dust and fired a blue blast back past the armored soldier's head.

"You missed!" he teased the Saiyan, watching it go by.

"No, I didn't," Bardock said from behind. The soldier gasped and looked down, letting out one last fearful cry as the Saiyan's hand exited through his chest with his heart in his hand. Bardock crushed it like a fruit and tossed him aside. "If these count as Frieza's elite," Bardock said, dodging several strikes up close and snapping the commander's nose with an uppercut, "then I'm not impressed." Bardock opened his hand again, wiping the commander away with a terrifying blue phaser. Bardock watched his Scouter hit the ground with a tap. "That was for my crew," he said bitterly, however his Scouter told him it wasn't over. He turned toward the source of the beeping, watching a short and stocky, pink man wearing a complete blue and brown uniform with hateful red eyes and short pink spikes on his head floating through the dust. "Dodoria," he hissed.

"Good work, you really fucked them up good," Dodoria said with a deep, gravelly voice. "I'm guessing by the way you're looking at me, you know why I'm here."

Bardock let out a battle cry and darted forward, unprepared for what would come out of the elite's mouth next.

Dodoria opened his mouth, launching a yellow phaser of death from his throat that completely overtook the Saiyan by the immense force and blinding light that sent him through large boulders and crumbling buildings until he could no longer see him. Dodoria closed his mouth with a small, pleased grin on his face. "Well, that really blew him away," he said, laughing to himself. He looked down at the wide, deep track of the blast, extending over the horizon. "Stupid monkey, he should have remembered his place." His Scouter beeped urgently, clicking the earpiece. "What do you want?"

"Frieza wants you to return to Kashakk, for a rendezvous with the other elites regarding Vegeta," a soldier announced.

"Vegeta, huh?" Dodoria chuckled. "Frieza's grunt breeding ground, he's up to something juicy!" Dodoria took off through the sky, marking off Bardock on his Scouter as a threat.

The Saiyan's hand shot up through the rubble, dragging the rest of his bloody body out, his armor scorched and partially burnt away. "We're not low levels," Bardock growled, climbing to his feet. "You just keep us down because you're afraid." He went over what Dodoria said in his head while catching his breath. "I'd imagine that other Saiyan squads might be experiencing the same sting," he said to himself, floating back to his pod. Sitting down was nearly unbearable, with fresh, deep wounds from his back hitting the boulder from Dodoria's blast grating against the mud, dirt, and shards of broken armor chipping off and embedding themselves under his red skin. He had no choice other than to fight through the pain. "I have to let the rest know what he did, hopefully I'll be able to stop Dodoria before he ambushes everyone, but-" The vision of Vegeta exploding flashed in his mind. "-what does this all mean?"

He flew back to his home world, his senses on overdrive with an innate paranoia that only increased as soon as he saw the second incoming ship. It was a fairly large space station on its own, a flying saucer that could cover the moon with spinning gold thrusters reinforced by shining steel borders and tinted windows that could be seen in between the thrusters. At the top of the ship was a small, glass atrium, and focusing on it made the color drain from the Saiyan's face.

"Frieza's here already?" He cursed under his breath, diving straight toward the hangar and slamming on the brakes. "This is bad, this is _very_ bad."

His head nearly broke through the cockpit window and he stumbled out of the ship, drawing the concerned attention of the flagmen clearing ships. "Damn, Bardock! What happened to you?"

"They must have really got you good," the other flagman said, "but you're back, so I guess we know how that turned out."

A laugh ran through the barracks, with some soldiers coming up to Bardock to congratulate him. The laugh was stifled when the first soldier pulled his hand back from Bardock's shoulder, finding it drenched in blood. "Get out of my way," Bardock panted, pushing past them and running into the base falling all over himself.

The flagmen nearly fainted at the volume of blood dripping out of the Saiyan's ship. They looked up at the sky, seeing Frieza's ship and no one else. "Where's the rest of his crew?"

Bardock ran past the nursery again, stopping himself as another flash of his spitting image kicked him in the side of the head. A tinny, buzzing voice spoke over the ringing in his ears and Bardock quickly tapped the Scouter, finding no one else in the hallway. "Is that _Frieza?_ I hear him as clear as day, but there's _no one_ here," he whispered to himself, hearing words coming from a voice that wasn't his own thinking alongside his own thoughts. "No, it's just my nerves," he said, finding himself unable to shut off the voice. "This is unreal," he said in dizzying shock, leaning forward and nearly falling headfirst into the glass. He clutched the railings in front of his son's empty crib, reading the note below in between warped, overwhelming visions of drowning again on the blue and green planet. "Seed acquisition, I must have missed him just now," he mumbled, reading the destination tag. "Earth."

The shadow opponent from before stared at him through the glass with his cold, dead, red eyes that swirled into Planet Vegeta just before they turned to ash under a sadistic, grating laugh he recognized as belonging to the leader of the mothership he passed by on the way there.

He wanted to collapse, his chest tightening and his legs shaking with the Kanassan laughing at him from beyond the grave. " _See the horror of your people's end… its last son…"_

A deep pit formed in his stomach and his sweat turned cold as the realization of what was about to pass reinvigorated him with a level of fear he had never experienced. "He was right," he said under his breath, "he was right!" he shouted, his mouth agape in speechless shock at Vegeta destructing before his eyes. "Everything he said was _right!_ " he cried out, dashing down the halls.

He darted past the health clinic, running down every winding, twisting corridor in the beehive until his legs gave out. He caught himself on a railing overlooking a few empty training rings, looking down and hearing his blood drip on the floor with a distinct plop like sand in an hourglass.

"That monster," he said with heavy breaths, pulling himself to his feet. "He's going to destroy the entire planet, after all we've done for that sick bastard!" He forced himself to run again, bouncing from wall to wall before spilling out onto the grate floor. "I have to warn everyone, get everyone out," he said, his voice beginning to trail off as he stared into the lights on the ceiling. A symbol seemed to take form, starting out as triangular in shape. A red "S" slowly drew itself to life in the center, burning brightly in a manner that gave him a twinge of hope.

" _It's time_ ," Frieza said within Bardock's mind, the weight of those words crushing him down while the light pulled him up.

"Stand up," a kind but strong voice said from the light, "this is no place for a warrior to die."

Bardock rolled over onto his hands and knees, feeling the hot air dance on his back wounds bleeding profusely. He punched straight through the bridge instead of screaming, bursting down the hallways with a second wind. "There's a mission ledger on a terminal just a mile from here in the operations room," he told himself as motivation. "With the PA system I can issue an emergency evacuation, I just hope they'll listen."

He pulled what little strength he had left into one burst, pushing past other soldiers left and right.

"Get out! Get out now, all of you!" he pleaded to strange stares and dismissive scoffs from his prideful kin, scrambling up a flight of stairs to a set of steel double doors that he pried apart with ease. It was a small control room, with manual ledgers stacked all the way to the ceiling and a wall of computers rendering them obsolete. Two short, thin, blue soldiers with eight eyes and hundreds of tentacles busily clacked away at the terminals of over sixteen computers, assigning missions and keeping tabs on the barracks, armaments, and other administrative matters. Behind the terminals were long, slanted windows overlooking the mess hall where thousands of Saiyans congregated in between missions. "I need to use that," he said, pulling up one of the bookkeepers and whipping him headfirst against the wall.

"B-bardock!" the other soldier stammered. "H-how's it going, b-buddy?"

Bardock looked over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing at hundreds of names at a time getting deleted from a long registry. His name was at the bottom of the screen.

"Who else was in on it, Gorba?" Bardock said in a vengeful, hushed voice, ripping him from the chair before he could send "help" to anyone listening. "Keep your mouth shut and you'll never open it again, do you hear me?"

"Th-that's c-confidential," he said, refusing to look at the Saiyan with any of his many eyes. "I-I'm not allowed to tell-"

"Shut up unless you're telling me something worthwhile," Bardock growled, pinning him against the wall, "this entire planet's about to burst so you'd better tell me who else was in the room when Frieza decided to send a couple men out to _fuck_ me or else you'll lose your chance to escape." Gorba was still stunned by fear, seeing the dead man walking. Bardock started squeezing one of his tentacles, forcing tears out of the technical genius's eyes. "I heard you have a brain in every one of these," Bardock said through grit teeth, "I wonder which one's the most painful to get rid of-"

"Everyone," he blurted out, cringing for the hit. "Everyone but the Saiyans, alright? I didn't have a say in it, no one did besides for Dodoria and Zarbon, we were just told to stay out of the way or else Frieza would wipe us out too, please don't kill me!"

Bardock's crew laying dead on the rocks was reflected out of Gorba's distressed eyes. "You just sat by, and let it happen?"

"I'm sorry," Gorba said with whimpering, silent sobs.

"I'm sorry too," Bardock said, "now no one will get in the way while you burn with us."

Gorba opened his mouth to scream but a swift punch to the face knocked him out cold.

Bardock slid into one of the chairs, connecting his headset to the main intercom that connected to the entire base. "This is an emergency announcement," he said, keeping his voice as steady and official as possible. "You must evacuate Vegeta now, or face capital punishment from Frieza directly. This is _not_ a drill, I repeat, _not_ a drill."

The base fell silent for a moment, exploding seconds later with a boisterous, cocky laughter that infuriated the man trying to save them.

"Shut up!" Bardock screamed. "You are _all_ going to die if you do not leave the area, do _not_ engage any mission objective, this is an order!"

"Is that Bardock?" one gruff voice below him said, followed by another mocking laugh that echoed through the halls and penetrated his mind. "The weight of his own ego finally crushed him, broke the poor man down!"

"He must have failed a mission," a woman replied, "he's worried he might get a week off for unpaid administrative leave, or lunch duty."

"I was ambushed by Dodoria on Frieza's orders, you idiots!" Bardock shouted bluntly. "Frieza will be here any minute, you need to leave now!"

"I heard he hit his head from his last mission," another Saiyan teased, "maybe he didn't take his medicine today!"

"For a brainiac, he sounds really dumb right now!" a fourth comment teased. "I think he got hit a little too hard!

"Fools! You're all dead! I'm going to do what I can to stop him from wiping us out, but if you're still here then there's nothing left to fight for!" Bardock punched through the desk, putting his first announcement on loop at the highest volume. He flipped a red switch in between two of the computers, triggering a blaring siren. "That can be heard all around the planet," Bardock said, "let's hope enough people listen in time."

He moved to another terminal, typing as fast as he could and swiping through log after log of files belonging to his team.

"They already labeled the rest of my crew as KIA," he said, changing his status from "recuperation" to "unknown." He quickly scrolled through his page, looking over his shoulder nervously every few seconds to keep himself ready for another ambush. "Children, two," he read, clicking it and opening the file. "Kakarot," he read first, confirming what the note said was true. "Earth, in transit." The pit formed again in his stomach again but he couldn't stop, going to the next page. "Raditz," he read, seeing a much older child's face on the ID chart. "Namek, in transit," it read. The vision of drowning flashed before his eyes again, particularly noting the third space pod with his own just before he crashed into the water. He changed the destination to Earth as well, wiping the sweat from his brow as heavy footsteps trudged up the stairs. He scanned the coordinates with his Scouter and saved it, shooting out all the working computers as soon as it sent. He whipped around and darted out of the chair, tossing the inspecting guards aside and rushing outside on the hot, red rocks, the wind blowing all of his hair in one direction.

" _Bardock,"_ the voice of hope from before said as if it was standing right in front of him, " _it's not too late."_

Bardock looked forward, seeing the evil entity from before waiting for him with scuffs, scratches and bruises. A second figure rose from above him, but Bardock could only make out his red eyes and pale, white skin before they were carried away like the dust in the wind.

" _You can be different than them,"_ the voice continued, leading him forward with every word back to the hangar. " _You_ have to _be different to truly make them pay for what they've done."_

"This is madness," Bardock said, pushing through the frenzied hangar, "too many voices, too many visions, it's- it's overwhelming!"

" _Frieza will never attain this gift,"_ the Kanassan whispered, " _now that it is yours._ "

Bardock looked up into the sky, his heart stopping at the presence above. He couldn't see it, but he felt it in his soul. "Frieza," he hissed, "he's here," He looked around, seeing no one heeding his words with horror on his face. "And no one suspects a thing."

"Bardock!" Planthorr shouted from the hangar, running up to him with Malaka. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You've put this entire base in disarray and have worried the populace! Lord Frieza will _kill_ you!"

"He's going to anyway!" Bardock shouted desperately for everyone to hear. "Get out, now! I must assure that the Saiyan race does not end today, whether any of you believe me or not!"

Malaka stepped away from the seething warrior, absolutely stricken sick by the blood pooling at Bardock's feet. "This is a case of delirium from your brain damage due to your last mission," he said, slipping his hand toward his pocket, "just come with us, we'll convince Lord Frieza to let you plea insanity just this once!"

Bardock dodged the bolt of electricity from the Taser in Malaka's hand. "What are you doing, Bardock?!" Planthorr barked behind him as he ran for his bloodied space pod.

"Changing the future!" Bardock declared, hearing the Kanassan's prophecy overwhelming his mind.

"Code 3324," Malaka said into his Scouter, blasting over all the intercoms. "Suspect is Bardock of Planet Vegeta, he is mentally unstable and requires immediate emergency medical services. Suspect is located in hangar bay seventeen and is highly dangerous, please take caution when subduing!"

Bardock found himself in a ring of concerned soldiers standing next to his pod. "You need to get out of here," he said, spiking his aura as they jumped on him. "How many times do I have to tell you?" The last of Bardock's energy exploded all around him with a painful roar, blowing everyone into the walls of the hangar. He dodged and ducked energy blasts left and right, throwing himself into his ship and closing the hatch.

"Don't let that ship leave the hangar!" Planthorr shouted, rallying everyone to their feet and dog piling on top of the ship.

"Get off, get off!" Bardock said, punching the ignition and skidding across the ground. Bardock fully tilted the control, throwing everyone off with a barrel roll that narrowly grazed across the bottom of the hangar bay doors. He rocketed through the sky with legions of soldiers chasing after him, breaking into space and all freezing at the sight of the mothership. Bardock's rage grew in parallel with his fear, two distinct feelings in tandem around the figure sitting in a floating black throne with his finger up in the air. He was smaller and thinner than anyone would expect, with smooth, pink skin and long tail under natural, fleshy armor-like plates in white with gold strips on his legs and arms and purple, hard and shining pads in the center of his chest, his shoulders, and the majority of the top of his head adorned with two black horns jutting out from the sides of his head above two boxy earlike holes. His hands and feet were purple and his nails were black, with a small, pleased smile on his face. On his finger was a small but radiant beam of orange and yellow light, like a tiny sun. "Frieza," he uttered, gasping with the attack ballooning in size in an instant. "N-no way, that's the size of an entire planet!"

Bardock could hear the fear of the other soldiers in his mind, their stuttering surprise making him want to break free of the pod to contend with the royal himself with his fear funneling into rage. The more he stared into the impending doom, the more enticing it became to greet it. He would do this alone if he needed to.

"What are you still doing here! Get out _now!_ " He shouted to the other soldiers, knowing they couldn't hear. That fact alone made his ship shake with his growing power fueled by hate. He couldn't see straight from the anger making his head throb, but his destiny could be seen clearly sitting in the chair awaiting for him to take it. "Tora, Fasha, Shugesh, Borgos, this is for-"

" _The horror of your people's end,"_ The Kanassan said, stopping Bardock's hand just before he could hit the brake.

Bardock's hand shook as he flew around the ships and mobs, his rage in the present contending with the caution for the future. One push of a button would change the survival of his people's legacy and fulfill the Kanassan's curse.

Bardock looked at his reflection in the glass in a moment of pause, his wounds, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the armor, nothing about his situation told him he was ready. The voices in his head had gone silent, as if waiting on his decision to continue haunting him.

"This is for you," he finished to his crew, locking eyes with Frieza for a split second before blasting off toward the planet in his visions. "I'll get you for this, I'll put you and everyone who followed you in the ground!"

Frieza's cold laughter in his mind would brand him forever. Bardock looked back against his intentions at the moon-sized attack burning a hole of inescapable death and destruction straight through Planet Vegeta before bursting in an extraordinarily bright flash, squeezing his eyes shut and screaming in agony as his visions became reality. The force from the explosion rattled his ship, forcing his eyes open as hundreds of small asteroids pelted him from behind. He looked in the rear view camera, his stomach churning from the planet he called home now scattered like the rest of the space dust floating among the stars from a blinding flash of light. His hand hovered the control again, in his desperation yearning to turn around and go out in glory like his teammates instead of escaping for reasons he didn't fully understand yet and a future that wasn't certain.

"Earth, destination lock on," the ship said with an automated woman's voice. "Estimated travel time, twenty five hours."

"Was this your goal?" Bardock said shakily to the Kanassan he killed laughing at him in his mind, continuing to read the cheers and self-congratulating in the tyrant Frieza's mind before his voice slipped away from his head with his ship, leaving Bardock alone with his own thoughts. The Kanassan whispered his prophecy once more, making him hit the armrest. "Of course it was," he shouted, watching the ashes from his home obscure his camera, "but why _me_?" He dropped his head in his hands, wanting to cry, puke, and pass out all at the same time. He opted for the first one, letting the anger at himself keep him distracted from the blood loss. "I could have- should have stopped him," he said to himself in horror, choking back tears. "I should be there with them," he said, "Tora, Fasha, all of them, whether I have psychic powers or not, I shouldn't be _here!_ " He broke the armrest with a punch and continued staring straight ahead, taking a few deep breaths to let his bitter tears dry away on their own. His stomach was sick enough for him, his own anxiety and regret spilling out everything he ate in the past few hours out onto the pod floor. Another wave of sadness washed over him as the ship's bottom absorbed and expelled the nasty refuse into the void. "What have I done?" he asked himself with a sob, recoiling with every vision of the mystery opponent, Kakarot, and Earth assaulting his already weakened and dizzy mind until he screamed again. "What have I done?!" he cried out to a silent, uncaring space, his vision beginning to blur and his head feeling incredibly light from the blood loss. He leaned his head back in regret, his body burning in pain and his face flushed in shame. "This isn't good," Bardock said weakly, fading out of consciousness with a small hope that he'd never wake up. "This is a nightmare."

* * *

 **WHAT** _ **HAS**_ **OUR SAIYAN FRIEND DONE? WILL KAKAROT AND RADITZ BE WAITING FOR HIM AT THEIR DESTINATION? WILL BARDOCK MAKE IT THERE SAFELY? CAN YOU GUYS GUESS ALL THE VOICES AND PEOPLE IN HIS VISIONS? FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON** _ **THE LAST SONS!**_


	3. Down from the Stars, Up from the Seas

**TWISTER: YOU'RE ABOUTTA FIND OUT OHOHOHOHOHO**

 **KORD: NO HAREM, THAT'S JUST HOW FF LISTS POWER GIRL**

 **A GUY: DW MY DUDE, CROSSOVER ELEMENTS INCOMING. I JUST HAD TO GET BARDOCK THERE. USUALLY MY STORIES ARE SHARED UNIVERSE JUST FYI**

 **DRAGONFOX, JEXCEL, AND CYBER: THANKS Y'ALL**

* * *

Bardock groaned, feeling his pounding headache and fiery chest wake him. He could barely lift his body from his seat from the dizziness, his skin cold, clammy, and pale from the blood loss pooling around his boots. The pod was bathed in a worrying red glow from the emergency light above. "Entering Lantern airspace, battery at critical levels, destination inbound," the pod cycled, turning Bardock's attention to the sight before him.

"Is this another vision?" Bardock asked himself, staring at one pod barreling toward the blue and green planet that usually appeared in them. "No, there's two," he said, fighting the debilitating pain to sit up and lean forward to grip the controls. "Which means one of them is already there," he said, his chest tightening from the other possibility, "or he never made it." He didn't have enough energy to be angry, but he still felt his face going red with it. "Shit, just-" Bardock weakly punched the controls, sitting back in his chair hard with impacted, weak breaths. "-shit."

"Entering gravity field," the pod announced, trailing the second pod dipping under the planet's sky. "Engaging landing mo-"

Bardock blinked and the pod went dark. No lights, no sounds, just him. He gripped the manual controls with his shaking arms, watching his son move over the other side of the planet. Bardock looked down at the planet he charged headfirst into, sighing at the vision of drowning flashing before his eyes. He looked out of the pod window, seeing a densely populated city far off in the distance under the sunrise sitting right on the coast. "I can swim there," he said hopefully, his legs screaming otherwise, "maybe." The pod tilted forward, making sure he could see the unmerciful ocean below. He desperately pulled at the controls to tilt the pod right side up again, but they were as helpful as the blood loss in his situation. He sighed, merely putting his hands behind his head and his knees up to his chest to brace for impact. "Scouter, get a lock on that space-"

He hit the water hard, the glass crushing under the force of the crash and tossing Bardock headfirst into the ocean. He screamed from the salt and glass that reawakened his dulled wounds, trying to push the pod aside with his little strength while holding his breath with lungs that were on fire. He looked around frantically through the water with his burning eyes, pushing away from the pod itself and watching long, gray beasts with fins on their sides, one on their backs, and tail fins circling underneath him with soulless, black eyes and razor sharp white teeth.

" _I'm_ not _going to be somebody's lunch!"_ Bardock declared in his head, using the adrenalin to fire down into the water with a bright yellow energy blast that scattered them. He tapped his Scouter's earpiece and kicked through the pain. " _Must keep going,"_ he told himself, feeling his chest tremor and water slip in through his gritted teeth. The burst faded fast and the sea monsters now entirely surrounded him, reappearing in greater numbers with every blast. " _I can't stop now, not while my kid's out there… I won't be able to pull through this if he blows everything here to hell!"_

As he thrashed around, cutting through scales, tentacles, and fins, he lost air quickly. His limbs burned, his lungs begged him to give in but he fought through it. One of the gray beasts opened its mouth and Bardock swung him aside, staring right into the twin blue shining blades of a tall, lean and muscular young man with bronze skin, glowing green eyes, and bleach blond hair in a low buzzcut. He wore a red battle vest and durable black pants, it was clear that he was prepared to fight. Bardock recoiled from the surprise, bumping into the suckers of an eight tentacled demon. He fought against it but his strength had failed him, gasping in water and falling prey to the beast behind him. The young man nodded to some of the beasts, dashing down through the water at blinding speed. Bardock tried to follow him with his eyes as long as he could, eventually losing him and consciousness to the darkness.

* * *

Bardock reached straight up with a forceful cough, spraying sea water all over the white examination table he sat on. He was panicked, looking around frantically at his situation. "Wh-where am I?" he asked with a rawness in his throat to the empty, small, podular room of all glass. He was surrounded by the ocean on the outside of the glass, where hundreds of men and women in long, green coats carted people around on rolling stretchers in a complex, tangled web of clear corridors. "A hospital," he said to himself in disbelief, "in an ocean." He looked down at himself, hooked up to at least ten bags of different IV fluids and wrapped in red bandages on his midsection over his back. He wore black underwear with a hole cut out for his tail. "On an uncharted planet in Lantern territory," he continued, leaning forward with his head in his hands, "with a ticking time bomb that I'm responsible for halfway across the planet." He looked up again, seeing some of the intrigued faces of the passers-by staring at him like he was an attraction at a zoo. The people here looked man enough, with slender faces, long and pointy ears, and some with gills. He looked around for a door, instead watching the wall open as if it was made of foam. The young man who he encountered before strode in with a set of soldiers in gleaming golden armor flanking him.

"Good, you're up," he said with a calm, collected voice, "you lost so much blood, when I brought you here, everyone was surprised that you still had the energy to fight. For a minute, we were certain that you were going to die."

"What is this place?" Bardock asked. "I need to find my son!" He gasped at the language he spoke that was not his own, touching around his mouth and feeling a paper-thin, clear strip gripping the inside of his mouth and outlining his hard jawline extending into his ears.

"Calm down, calm down," he said, "your heart can't afford anymore abuse right now. You're on Earth, more specifically, Atlantis. The device in your mouth allows you to understand and respond to anyone speaking any language from here, so don't rip it out just yet."

"Who are you?" Bardock asked, looking up and not being able to see the sun. "The bottom of the ocean… how long was I out?"

"My name is Kaldur'ahm," he said, taking Bardock's Scouter from a guard and handing it to him. "You can call me Aqualad."

"I need to know the time, Aqualad," Bardock pleaded, "my son's out there, and if we don't find him by nightfall, then we're all going to be in deep shit."

Aqualad glanced at the heart monitor, watching it increase in frequency. "It's an hour past sunrise, still morning," he said, giving Bardock a little relief. "I heard your ship when you crashed, sadly we couldn't salvage it. Most of the electronics had completely shorted out, that headset of yours is incredibly tough though."

Bardock saw his reflection in the glass, using it to fasten the Scouter correctly. "Thanks for pulling me out," he grumbled, thinking back on what led him there in the first place. "What about my armor?"

Aqualad's face turned stern, cold. "Gone," he said. "So much was embedded in your back, the surgeon thought it was part of your ribcage before he cleaned the blood away. Leaving incisions open was a problem though, you started clotting faster than our surgeons could keep up with. We were able to save this, however."

Aqualad handed Bardock his blood headband. It was a tad washed out, with the redness faded, but it was the sentiment that counted. He tied it around his forehead. "I didn't mean to hurt your scouts back there, whatever they were. They just surprised me. It's been one hell of a day."

Aqualad watched him pull the needles out of his body with ease, feeling a tad queasy watching the wounds heal nearly instantly. "You said you had a son with you, yes?"

Bardock nodded. "My other one should be here soon. I don't know how Lantern planets deal with refugees, but none of us can go back."

Aqualad studied him curiously, trying to figure out if he had seen anyone else like him. "Lantern planets," he said, "go back where?"

Bardock walked toward the foam wall door, beginning his solemn tale. "Planet Vegeta, home of the warrior race, the Saiyans. As of yesterday, my sons and I are all that's left."

Aqualad's eyes widened at the grim statement, empathizing while realizing that he wasn't the right person to talk to about it, at least not while he needed immediate help. "Come with me," he said, handing him a pair of green pants and a gold shirt, "and get changed."

Bardock jumped into the clothes and followed him out, taking in the magnificence of the society that saved him. He'd argue that it was as advanced as Vegeta was, it certainly rivaled it in technical prowess. The walkways were lined with gold and emerald among tall, oblong but beautiful buildings lit by anglerfish street lights that gave it an enchanting, haunted aire. All roads led to a stunning golden palace that stretched back as far as he could see. Statues of great Atlanteans stood in a row in front of a large staircase leading up to the central palace and throne room, where the leaders standing in front of a holographic map of the city talked to heavily armored soldiers left and right. "Queen Mera," Aqualad said, "the visitor is awake. His issue's way more complicated than anybody else we've rescued before, but I think it might sound familiar to you, Aquaman."

The king and queen turned around, facing the displaced refugee. The queen was as fierce as she was regal, with fiery red hair, bright green eyes and pale skin like the other Atlanteans with a slim but curvy figure. She wore a green jumpsuit adorned with green scales and a golden tiara with a flowing, thin golden cape. "Bring him here," she said, summoning him up the stairs.

"You recovered quite quickly," the king, this Aquaman, said with a deep, authoritative and heroic voice that matched his rugged, muscular look and physique. He was at least six inches taller than Bardock, with sunkissed skin and an Olympian's physique that was heavily tattooed under heavy golden armor, long and wavy golden brown hair and beard, a scar cutting across one of his eyebrows over his emerald eyes. Bardock tapped his Scouter, seeing it flash a set of numbers at the bottom of his screen. Impressive. "After the hits you took, we expected you to be out for at least a week."

"Thank you for bringing me here," Bardock said, glancing around at the rest of the Atlanteans approaching the staircase kneeling, "your highness. I come from Planet Vegeta, where it and my race was eradicated by Frieza, tyrant leader of the Intergalactic Trade Federation. I need to find my sons and recuperate my strength so I can find him and make him pay for what he's done. This planet's already on his radar, so it's only a matter of time before he destroys us all himself-"

"Slow down," Aquaman said, sitting on his extravagant throne next to Mera's. "You won't be able to think straight if you don't take this in steps."

"Please," Mera said, "start from the beginning."

"And who is this 'Frieza?'" Aqualad asked.

Bardock felt a twinge of aggravation from being interrupted. He told them his story, starting from the Kanassan all the way to his crash. "My son was sent here to seize this planet, to completely wipe you all out and secure this planet for potential buyers who want to start an Empire. If we don't find him before nightfall, then his ship will relay a signal back to Frieza's elite to check it in. I can take out three or four of them, but once one of them goes down, we'll get swarmed. This planet will be gone in hours."

Aquaman and Mera were stunned in silence, staring at each other in unease. "This is disturbing news," Mera said, "but you mentioned you had a second son- do you know of his whereabouts?"

"Sadly, no," Bardock said, tapping his Scouter, "but with this, there's no doubt that I'll be able to find him." He realized that the royals were simply staring at the device. He also realized that, relatively speaking, he was in the boonies of this galaxy. "We call it a Scouter. It reads the unique energy signals of each individual granted it's significant."

"Why can't you locate your other son with it?" Aquaman asked.

"Newborns have too low of a power level to track at far ranges," Bardock said, "by the time the Scouter locked on, I'd be right on top of him."

"No offense, but how is a newborn supposed to take over an entire planet?" Aqualad asked.

"I'd rather you not find out," Bardock said, "regardless, once I find him, I can assure you that I'll neutralize any threat he may pose."

Aquaman and Mera were still processing everything the visitor had told them, but their minds were stuck on Frieza and his seemingly imminent contact with their planet.

"I have nowhere else to go," Bardock said, the feeling of being backed into a corner making him panic all over again. "Until Frieza's dealt with, I can't risk this planet's destruction too, for my entire race, for my sons."

Aquaman nodded approvingly at the declaration, with Mera tapping the end of her trident leaning against her throne to summon four Atlantean soldiers. "I will send search parties out for any ship that looks like yours," she said, "as soon as we have found him, you will be notified immediately."

"Aqualad and I will help you personally," Aquaman said, "I just need to confirm that what you said is true. Not to sound cynical, but this isn't the first time a plea for help has ended in a plot to turn Atlantis to ashes."

"Ashes," Bardock repeated, looking past the king at a black, shadowy figure wielding two handheld omega shaped blades skulking behind the throne. The statues had been torn down and the palace looted and razed to the ground with masked, silent warriors in black chasing Atlanteans to their deaths all around him. He blinked and the shadows had vanished, bringing him back into the moment. He looked up at the king in distress. "You're all in grave danger."

"What is this?" Mera asked with concern, gripping her trident warily.

"We have to go," Bardock said, "if you're going to help me find my son, I need to assure that Atlantis is still here."

Aquaman and Aqualad looked at each other with confusion, Aquaman hefting a golden, glowing trident of his own and following the strange visitor. Bardock quickly made it to the edge of the city, a thin wall in between him and the ocean. "What do you mean by that?"

"Ever since Kanassa, I've had disturbing visions of the future," Bardock said. "That's how I avoided my planet's destruction and arrived here. I can't control it, at least not yet." He turned to Aquaman with a grimace on his scarred face. "What do you know of a man named 'Black Manta?'"

The mentor and apprentice looked at each other again for reassurance that they were hearing the same thing. "What do _you_ know of him?" Aquaman said.

"That he's gathering an army on a small landstrip off the coast of the nearby continent and he's going to kill you today if you don't stop him first," Bardock said, the steps leading into the dark trench flashing before his eyes. "I know how to get there."

"Uoam's Island," Aquaman said, turning sharply to Aqualad. "Stay here with Mera and keep our generals on standby, I'll go investigate the visitor's claims and give you a signal as soon as I discover this 'army.'"

Bardock stepped forward. "I'm going with you," he said. "Backing you up, it's the least I can do for keeping me alive."

Aquaman put a strong hand on his shoulder. "You're a warrior, I can tell," he said, "but Black Manta has plagued Atlantis for too long, with strength, speed, and wit comparable to my own. You have two sons out there who cannot risk their only relative perishing, not now."

"You're still recovering from the crash earlier," Aqualad said, "the fact that you're walking around right now is a miracle, so don't test fate. Any weak spot on you gets hit right now, you're done."

"You're going to need me out there," Bardock pressed.

"Manta would skewer you before you could complete a breaststroke," Aquaman said with genuine worry over the headstrong visitor, "you must listen to-"

Bardock spiked his aura, making both of them jump back with the air vibrating in his yellow energy field making his hair stand up on all ends. "Now I really want to meet him."

The ground rumbling beneath their feet was enough proof for the Atlanteans. "Aqualad, you're with me. Mera will flank us with her guard from behind."

"You _and_ Mera will be going together?!" Aqualad said, staring at Aquaman stranger than at the stranger. "You'll be leaving the city defenseless, who knows how long this will take!"

"Not very long," Bardock said, folding his arms. "I don't have time for a drawn out fight."

Aquaman chuckled at the confidence exuded by the soldier. "Go, Aqualad."

Aqualad wanted to argue, but Aquaman's mind was set. Within minutes, Mera and a small squad of Atlantean guards were prepared for battle with them. "You're certain this man can hold his own with us, against _Manta_?"

Aquaman slipped through the wall, gesturing them to follow on his lead.

"A simple yes would have sufficed," Mera said, trailing Aquaman with Aqualad and the soldiers on her side.

Bardock watched them fan out into a fully offensive battle formation. Whoever this Black Manta was, they certainly had enough confidence to know exactly how they should approach him. Bardock shot through the wall and into the water after the team of jetstreams rushing toward the island in his vision. Bardock swam overhead like a looming beast, leaving all of the Atlanteans behind as he shot forward at double the speed. Aquaman and Mera looked at each other in shocked disbelief at his sheer speed, bursting forward as well to not be outdone. Bardock shot upward through the water passing over a coral reef and soared into the gray, stormy sky. He looked down at the long landstrip of sand, seeing the Atlanteans swimming as fast as they could below the water. The black shadows in his vision lined the strip in the hundreds to thousands with a wide dock at one end of the strip lined with armored submarines carrying munitions of all sorts. The leader of the warriors in black diving suits stood in the center of the strip, handing black, spiked mines on chains to his underlings. He was tall and fit, wearing a high tech armored black scuba suit with a glowing red outline and a wide, black steel helmet with ovular, shining red eyes. The blades Bardock saw in the vision were looped around a thick utility belt, but it didn't matter to him either way. Bardock landed at the edge of the shore, glancing back at the Atlanteans waiting for the warriors in black to notice. "Black Manta," Bardock said, his voice sharp and clear cutting through all the commotion.

The mine-wielding diver turned to the Saiyan clad in gold and green, parting his men to get a better look at the surprise visitor in the awkward silence. "Do I know you?" he said, his voice modulated to be extremely deep and brooding.

"You don't need to," Bardock said, "all you need to know is that I have some very time sensitive goals that the Atlanteans are helping me achieve and an invasion is something I don't have time for today."

Black Manta's hands went for his blades with hundreds of handheld laser blasters humming with power focused on him. "I guessed I asked the question because you're here acting like there's going to be a fight."

The royals and Aqualad rose from the water, stepping in front of the Saiyan with their weapons drawn. "Our guest tipped us off to your plot," Aquaman growled, brandishing his trident and falling into a fighting stance. "It's over, Manta. Turn in your weapons and come quietly, and no one gets hurt."

Manta laughed, falling into stance as well. "The entire royal family is here, in one place?" Manta pointed one blade at the stranger. "If usurping the throne was your goal, you should have just said that up front!" He crossed his blades, making sparks fly from the electricity coming off his buzzing steel. "Kill them all."

"How am I bringing him in?" Bardock asked.

"How are _you_ bringing him in?" Mera said in disbelief.

"Alive," Aquaman said, darting toward Black Manta as the laser weapons prepared to fire, "all of them."

"Stand back," Bardock warned him, rising high in the air with his aura bursting again.

Aquaman looked up, watching yellow orbs of bright energy swell on his hands. "What the hell?"

Mera and Aqualad hopped back just as the first wave crashed into the sand to knock hundreds of warriors to the ground from the shockwaves. Aquaman slipped from the tremor and looked up at the visitor again. Bardock landed in front of the royals and held his hand out, acutely countering each laser blast with his own energy. Soon, the blasts passed through as if he wasn't there at all. When Black Manta turned around, however, he no longer had anybody to fire at him. His army laid face down at his feet, all rolling and groaning in pain. "So- f-fast!" Aqualad stammered.

"Did you see that?" Mera asked in shock.

"Barely," Aquaman grumbled.

"Like I said before," Bardock said. "I don't have time for any of this right now." He smirked, drawing his stance and beckoning him forward. "Don't make me hurt you."

Black Manta let out a battle cry and charged, lunging forward ferociously with his blades. "I'm going to make an example of your guest, Aquaman!"

"Such a sod," Bardock said, dodging a thrust. Bardock planted him in the sand with one right hook to the chest, arching him over his fist with a painful yelp before letting him drop.

"Holy _shit_ ," Black Manta stammered, trying to climb to his feet but falling on his back.

Bardock flicked his finger at the opponent, denting his helmet with an invisible ray of energy to knock him out cold. He turned to the three Atlanteans staring at him in awe, hefting Black Manta over his shoulder and walking up to them. "I hope this makes up for everything you've done for me," Bardock said earnestly, "but I think I'm going to continue searching for my son using his trajectory from the air. I just need to be safe, in case your scouts don't reach him in time." Bardock handed Black Manta to Aquaman. "Your highness," Bardock said to Mera, "if it's alright, I'm going to link my Scouter's communication with that of your search parties, so that I'll know right away."

"You're leaving?" Aquaman asked.

"I have to," Bardock said, "I can't stop, not until I have both of my sons under my surveillance. The survival of this planet depends on it, and like I said before, there's nowhere else I can go."

"How are you going to get food, housing for them, if you leave now?" Mera asked. "Just stay here, we will find him and, now that we know where your loyalties reside, will make sure he stays safe until you decide it's time for you to leave. The world up here is far less forgiving than ours."

"I'll take my chances," Bardock said, floating in the air, "and thanks again. Once I find him, I may be forced to take you up on your offer, but for now I can't just sit idly while he's out there."

"Wait," Aquaman said, pointing with his trident over to the city on the coast miles away. "If you need help while you're up here, there's a man in Metropolis who might be able to help you. I don't know him very well, but he's saved the planet time and time again. If this Frieza decides to make a visit, it'd be good to have both of us in your corner."

"What's his name?" Bardock asked.

"They call him 'Superman.'"

Bardock nodded earnestly. "I'll keep that in mind. Again, I cannot thank you enough."

Aqualad looked around at the quick but devastating carnage the Saiyan caused. "I think you've repaid that debt in spades."

"Goodbye, for now," Bardock said, taking off into the sky.

Mera shouted up behind him. "What's _your_ name, visitor?" she said, watching him vanish among the raindrops pouring over the ocean.

"Bardock!" the Saiyan shouted back.

The three Atlanteans stared up silently at the sky, then back at the ground littered with their opponents. Aquaman stood over his greatest foe, unconscious and on his knees after one punch. "That was-"

"Terrifying," Aqualad said.

"Badass," Aquaman chuckled.

Mera's guards secured the submarines and weapons, taking them under the water and away from the landstrip. "He's making a mistake, going out on his own like that. I don't think he realizes just how much work he's going to be dealing with."

"I think he'll be just fine," Aquaman said.

"I'm not talking about fighting," Mera clarified. "I pray to Neptune that we find his son before he does."

"We'll see him again, my queen," Aquaman said, "if this Frieza has as far of a reach as Bardock says he does, we're going to be seeing him _very_ often."

* * *

 **WHERE WILL OUR HERO GO TO NEXT IN THE SEARCH FOR KAKAROT? WILL THE ATLANTEANS FIND THE BABY BEFORE BARDOCK DOES?** **WHERE IS RADITZ? WILL BARDOCK KEEP THIS REFUGE SAFE? WHO IS THIS 'SUPERMAN' AQUAMAN MENTIONED? REVIEW/PM!**

 **ALSO I KNOW THAT BARDOCK AND THE SUPERMAN CREW HAVEN'T MET YET BUT THEY WILL VERY SOON, JUST BE PATIENT FAM TY**

 **THIS AQUAMAN IS GOING TO BE SIMILAR TO JASON MOMOA'S PORTRAYAL**


End file.
